Mathematica on Linux /tmp/MathLink vulnerability

[paul.szabo () sydney edu au]

"If you're doing anything technical, think Mathematica --..."
  http://www.wolfram.com/products/mathematica/index.html

Mathematica7 on Linux uses the /tmp/MathLink directory in insecure ways.
Mathematica creates or re-uses an existing /tmp/MathLink directory, and
overwrites files within and follows symlinks. This type of behaviour is
"known unsafe" on multi-user machines e.g. University login servers.
As a classic example of a symlink attack, if an "attacker" uses:

  mkdir /tmp/MathLink; ln -s /home/victim/.bashrc /tmp/MathLink/.gshmm

then when the victim runs Mathematica his ~/.bashrc will be clobbered.
New files are created world-writable, allowing a complete compromise of
the user account by linking to ~/.bash_logout . (If root ever uses
Mathematica then the damage is greater.)

Mathematica uses also /tmp/fonts$$.conf in insecure ways.

Workaround: use command-line math instead of pretty interface.

Notified support () wolfram com on 7 May 2010, was assigned [TS 16194].

Cheers,

Paul Szabo   psz () maths usyd edu au   http://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/psz/
School of Mathematics and Statistics   University of Sydney    Australia